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For Northwestern WR Kyle Prater, “it’s now or never.” (Apologies to Elvis Presley on that)
He had a breakout game Saturday, 87 yards receiving and his first collegiate touchdown. Unfortunately, it came in a very bad loss to a mid-major school, so it was a very bittersweet day for Prater.
“Unfortunately, I had to get my first touchdown with a loss, but like I said I’m humbled,” Prater said.
“I’ve overcome a lot.”
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Illinois basketball (19-8, 6-7), erased the second worst blemish on their NCAA Tournament resume by paying back Northwestern Sunday night at Welsh-Ryan Arena in Evanston. On January 17th the Illini never led in a 68-54 defeat. Tonight Illinois basketball responded with a more than convincing 62-41 victory
Northwestern (13-13, 4-9) endured a scoring drought of ten minutes which allowed the Illini to build a 30 point lead. The nearly 3/4 Illinois basketball favoring crowd at Welsh-Ryan was empathetic and gave a bronx cheer when James Montgomery III finally ended the drought. Northwestern shot only 25 percent for the game. It’s Northwestern’s lowest point total since 2008 when it scored 37, also against the Illini.
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In some ways, the Northwestern Wildcats and Chicago Cubs were meant for each other. Both had/have major droughts. The NU college football team just won their first bowl game since 1949, and the college basketball has never ever made the NCAA Tournament, 70+ tries. As you’ve heard a million times, the Cubs haven’t been to the World Series since 1945 and won one since 1908.
The last time they joined forces, Wrigley Field hosting Northwestern vs. the Illini in 2010, the national media was all over it. For good reasons and bad. The snug fit between the back of the east end zone and the field wall, forced both teams to go the same way on offense. This gaffe generated a ton of national publicity, and a lot of it was negative. When they do this again in 2014, hopefully they’ll get it right this time. There was talk of Wrigley hosting a bowl game after this, and if the next games go off without a hitch, maybe there will indeed be a bowl game.
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Today, the Northwestern Wildcats ended their 64 year old bowl drought. They upped their record in bowl games to 2-9. And they did it over an SEC team no less, the once 11th ranked Mississippi St Bulldogs. In 2010, the Chicago Blackhawks ended their 49 year old Stanley Cup drought. In 2005, the Chicago White Sox ended their 88 year World Series drought. So now that leaves only two: Northwestern basketball, who’ve never made a NCAA Tourney. Well, with how they’ve played at home lately, their injuries and a RPI of 105, I’d say they have to wait a year- at least. And the Chicago Cubs 104 year Sahara like drought? They lost 101 games last year, so don’t expect that to change anytime soon.
Let’s get back to what the Cats accomplished today.
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At the beginning of the season we gave a quarterly review of the performance of each Big Ten team and graded them based on how they did compared to pre-season expectations. As the season progressed, so did the quarterly reviews. About a month ago, we gave our third quarter review. Now, with the regular season over, we conclude the series with our season in review. Each school’s grade is based on its overall / conference record, and how the team improved or declined throughout the season based on their expectations.
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Earlier in the season we gave a quarterly review of the performance of each Big Ten team and graded them based on how they did compared to pre-season expectations. About a month ago, we gave our mid-season review. Now, three-quarters of the season is over, and each school’s grade is based on its overall/ conference record, and how the team has improved or declined since the first half of the season.
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About a month ago we gave a quarterly review of the performance of each Big Ten team and graded them based on how they did, compared to how they should have done according to pre-season expectations. Now, we have our mid-season review in which each school’s grade is based on its overall/ conference record, and how the team has improved or declined since the first quarter of the season.
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In their 44-29 victory over Indiana Saturday, Northwestern had an extremely balanced attack on offense: accruing 310 yards passing and 394 yards rushing (704 overall on 93 plays). The first and only 700 yard total offense day in school history just says so much about how a very bad Hoosier defense was just so over-matched all day.
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Believe it or not, the college football season is a quarter over, and we are only a week away from the kick-off of Big Ten conference play! With only three games played this season, it may seem a bit soon to be handing out letter grades, but these first three weeks can be very telling as to what may be in store for the rest of the season.
Each team will receive a letter grade based on the level at which they have performed compared to what has been expected of them.
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The Louisville Sports Commission announced that Northwestern junior Venric Mark is one of 49 Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) players named to the Paul Hornung Award Preseason Watch List, handed out annually to the most versatile player in college football.
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Training camp is underway for Northwestern football. The ‘Cats figure to be explosive on offense, with some questions on defense. Media day was Wednesday and with it Pat Fitzgerald answered some key questions about Chicago’s Big Ten team.
Here were some of the highlights
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Modern media publications review movies, television shows and rock albums, but no one reviews blogs, the question is why? Obviously, it’s easy to review static mass media items that aren’t changing once they initially are produced much more easily than the dynamic and the evolving world of blogs.
Of course, some aspects of certain blogs are pretty consistent, and with regular features running all the time, there is enough remaining the same so that one can accurately critique. Obviously, to do a feature like this, the number of blogs out there must be small, and the market size niche- like we have with Northwestern.
